Day 8: Volcano National Park: Around the Crater Rim
This was our day to cycle the Crater Rim Drive, and to hit the sites and small trails that are found along the way. As explained before, we can no longer cycle the complete caldera as a circle, because the west end is closed off due to hazardous gas from the lava lake. Cycling from the west end, we would hit the Jaggar Museum and the Volcano Observatory, the Military base mess hall, the steaming bluffs, the sulphur bank trail, Volcano House, the Thurston Lava Tube, the Kilauea Iki overlook, and the Devastation Trail, and back.
The overview of the environment here is -- mixed. You look out on barren lava and cinder, but are generally surrounded by a rain forest with Ohia Lehua, Hapu'u tree ferns, Koa trees, bamboo orchid, and white Kahili ginger. On the other hand, by our cabin it is a forest of tall Eucalyptus. On the human side, the elevation must be too high for transients and partiers, so what we have is droves of tourists bussed in on huge vehicles, plus the treasured small number of hiker/bikers in our campground. We of course enjoy talkiing to the hiker/bikers, but there are many sweeties among the bus tourists as well. We enjoy finding out where they are from, and since we are such experienced travellers (hah!) if they name a European country we say "Yes, but where?". In younger years we would look with scorn on bus tourists. But older now, we are mellower, and besides we think "There but for fortune go you or I".
As we set off on the Crater Rim excursion we are experimenting. We have Dodie completely unloaded, save for her heavy handlebar bag,full of all kinds of mystery potions and doodads, plus our passports. Our latest thinking is not to abort the ride, or do anything fancy - like using a car to deposit our camping gear back in Kona while attempting to find B&Bs near where we would have camped. Instead, we will cut back total weight, maybe with the help of a small mailback, and then load as much as possible onto my bike. We will try to leave Dodie with just her clothes, in the two front bags, with the rears almost entirely empty. Tomorrow we will set it up that way and ride to Volcano village and back to see how it feels. We are encouraged, because totally unloaded, Dodie was able to do the hills on Crater Rim today with no problem. She even hobbled with her stick along the three or four short trails today.
Follow us now in pictures around the crater rim. The captions will hopefully explain where you are and what you are looking at:
(photos coming soon, and captions a little after. We are also planning to walk through the forest in the dark to see the glow of the lava lake. We usually get lost on such forays. Check back to see if we got any kind of good photo.)
Two little ones on trail a bikes are part of a guided bike tour. It was their first time on such contraptions, and there were a few tears but we are sure it turned out ok.
Even though we may mention something like the Ohia Lehua forest, or other natural aspects here, it is not even a scratch on the surface of the information that is available. It would take a lot of time and interest to really delve in to it, of course.
The fiddlehead of the tree fern was used as an antiseptic dressing. The fern is also knownn as the walkiing tree, since it falls down, but then sprouts again further on on the fallen bit. A fallen fern can also serve as a nurse log for other species.
This area attracts scads of tourists. As we passed here on our way back, two park rangers were directing traffic. They mentioned that this was pretty easy duty, except on days when a cruuise ship dumps an extra load of people into the system. On the other hand, they said, their life is easy because the TSA has done all the work - screening literally everyone who enters the Island, so they are free of guns and drugs.
The Kilauea Iki vent has had the most spectacular eruptions, with lava fountains and rivers of fast flowing lava. Downwind from a fountain a cinder cone formed, while the forest was destroyed. The resulting stark lanndscape is wonderfully photogenic.
This road gives us a shortcut back to the campground, and also allows us to bypass the park entrance gate. It was actually a ranger that clued us in to it.
Uncharacteristically, we failed to get lost on the forest walk at night. And we failed to step off the edge of the caldera into a lava lake, or anything like that. This is no doubt due to the fact that the well prepared path had rock cairns all the way along. Also, the caldera rim was lined with tour busses, full of people here for the same reason that we were. Here is what the forest walk looked like:
Although the lava lake is down in the crater and at the distance that we were from it (at the Observatory) you can not look down into it, there was plenty of evidence of what was going on, through the red glare on the clouds of steam and smoke. It looked like this:
We sat for a while, watching the billowing action, and eventually turned and began walking away. At this point the thing went "KABOOM". That is, it made the sound represented by "kaboom", which is what you generally find written above a volcano when it appears in some sort of cartoon representation. But "kaboom" is exactly what it said. We turned around to see if there might be any lava fountain, or six ton boulders being hurled, but the scene was the same as before.
The walk was worth it, but the rough downward return path was hard on Dodie's knees. She spent the rest of the night whimpering, and I accused her of screwing up our unloaded/minimally loaded cycling experiments by prancing over the forests in the night. She is distracted enough by the pain, it seems, that I got away with this without getting cuffed on the side of the head. Still, in the morning we will cycle partially loaded to Volcano village and back, and see how it works out.
Today's ride: 27 km (17 miles) Total: 207 km (129 miles)
